People come and go and I am completely seduced by the incredibly casual communal atmosphere he creates around him.
- With Nails: The Film Diaries of Richard E. Grant, R.E.G.
A tale of two different time zones unfolded, almost, literally, as Brendan Bayliss sat in front of the tour bus, and his new collaborator and 30db bandmate Jeff Austin sat in the rear, on the way to their gig in Wisconsin as Jambands.com held court with the Umphrey’s McGee prog/jam king based in Chicago, and Yonder Mountain String Band’s Colorado resident for a look at a collaboration nearly a half decade in the making. Their debut album is the phenomenally confident and spirited One Man Show, which is a testament to formidable musicianship and songwriting for two gentlemen who bonded on the road, but also connected due to divorces, which impacted their psyches, songcraft, and creative process. The band isn’t just a duo, either, as the pair shares duties with North Mississippi Allstars drummer Cody Dickinson, eTown founder and radio host, and ace guitarist Nick Forster, and Boulder bluegrass legend and bassist Eric Thorin. But, in the end, this quintet is centered on two leaders from divergent musical backgrounds. Thus far, 30db has succeeded in shaking both out of their elements, their comfort zones, while appearing to show two men who needed fresh starts a new way of making music.
PART I – THINGS I WISH I COULD HAVE SAID WITH BRENDAN BAYLISS
They went out the driveway, and to this day I don’t know what happened.
- Taj Mahal: Autobiography of a Bluesman, Taj Mahal with Stephen Foehr
RR: We spoke about the possibility of future collaboration with Jeff Austin in January 2009 for an Umphrey’s McGee feature. What happened in the last fifteen months, which produced a band name, 30db, a debut album, and tour dates?
BB: It kind of naturally developed when we started piling up these songs. We were talking about putting an album together. But with our schedules and everything, it was so random when we could get together, that it’s taken a really long time. We got together to record four or five things in Chicago, and then a year past. When we started talking about finishing that, Jeff was talking about songs that he wanted to have drums on, and put a full band on. With that being the case, we had to re-record the first four songs. I flew out to Colorado, and met Nick [Forster, electric guitar] and Eric [Thorin, bassist], and Cody [Dickinson, drums] flew out the next day. The first track we did with everybody was like night and day in difference, so we decided to scrap the first session, and start completely over with the full band. After hearing one song with everybody, it just seemed like it was meant to be that way.
RR: What were the original four songs that you worked on?
BB: “Susanah” was one of them, a song called “Always Up,” a song called “Liar,” and a song called “Grave.” Those were the first four.
RR: Did you write “Susanah” and “Liar?”
BB: Yeah.
RR: Let’s talk about those two songs.
BB: When Jeff and I started talking about writing songs together, “Susanah” was the first song I wrote with this project in mind. He and I were both obviously going through the same thing at the same time. When we talked about writing, I wanted to have at least one song (when we got together to start banging stuff out), I wanted to have something to show him. So there’s something in the lyrics that says we won’t talk about our names here—disregarding his musical background and my background, and starting from scratch and seeing what happens. I kind of had him in mind with that song. “Liar”—once he told me he liked “Susanah,” I knew which direction we were going in, so that was the second song I came up with for this album.
RR: What strikes me is how well your two styles blend together on the album, and how you both, coming from two different backgrounds, emphasized strong songwriting skills. However, just because you two hit it off, and had similar interests, doesn’t mean that you were going to be able to write together. But you did.
BB: Exactly. The first time I flew out to Colorado we tried to write, we didn’t get things done. I got really drunk and threw up in his bathroom, and didn’t get a song finished. We could have tried three or four times and not come up with anything, but somehow, we just kind of met in the middle.
RR: Obviously, this is a different songwriting outlet, as opposed to your longer, more complex, progressive and improvisation material with Umphrey’s McGee. Did you always feel like you’d do a project where you would focus on concise songs, moving from one song to the next, or, was this something that clicked with Jeff?
BB: I think in the back of my mind I always felt like I’d do something by myself—very song-oriented like a solo acoustic album. I didn’t have a timeline, and I figured I didn’t need one, probably accumulate songs over the course of ten or fifteen years, and maybe put one out. That’s about as much thought as I put into it. When this project came up, it gave me an opportunity to simplify. A lot of this stuff when I’m writing for Umphrey’s is a totally different approach because I’m thinking of how it’s going to apply to six people, where is it going to fit in the set with the other stuff we have with all the songs. Sometimes with Umphrey’s, if I’m working on something that I don’t think we’re going to play live, I feel like I’ll just put it off to the side because it’s not worth the time. We make the bulk of our career off playing live with ticket sales. If it’s a simple song that
we’re probably not going to do, I’ll put it off to the side, and maybe get around to it later.
RR: Let’s discuss three more songs written by you from the album: “Return Item,” “Get in Line,” and “Backbone.”
BB: “Return Item” is actually an older tune. I have to think about that. I guess when I was trying to churn out a bunch of acoustic stuff for 30db that was the one that came out real quick. The whole thing happened in 10 or 15 minutes, and I thought, “Maybe it’s too mellow for this project.” But I just put it on a CD I sent to Jeff with 15 songs or whatever, and he really liked that one. I was surprised because I thought it was a little too mellow, but I figured I’d just add to the pile, and it’d make for a better album if we had more songs to pick from. That was a really quick song that came in 20 minutes. Done. And I wish they were all like that.
“Get in Line.” We did the studio sessions in two main sessions. I came home from that first one, and was pretty jazzed up about having the full band and everything, so I wanted to write something that had a straight, driving drum beat, and a good song to listen to in the car. I always wanted to use an open tuning, and I had never written a song with an opening tuning, so that song was more of an experiment—there are only two sections, but trying to make it interesting over a four-minute period. When I sent it out to the 30db guys, they all really liked that one. That one means a lot to me.
RR: All down the line in your career, I’ve noticed a consistent strand in your lyrics. There appears to be a bit of an afterglow of a conversation as if it is a conversation which is taking place after something has happened, or something might have happened. I find that to be a very strong consistent theme in your songwriting.
BB: Yeah, I guess it is. I think a lot of it is a conversation…I guess it is things that I would have liked to have said to either a close friend, or an ex-wife, or whoever it is. A lot of it, I guess, is conversations that I wish could have taken place, or things I wish I could have said that I really never had the opportunity to, so I guess it’s my way of having that conversation—even if it is a one-way conversation with all me talking.
RR: “Backbone” has a beautiful guitar solo. I was very impressed. Was that recorded in a single take?
BB: Thank you. Yeah, actually, it was great because we tracked the basic track, and I remember it came time to make that solo, and I get really nervous in the studio when there’s a bunch of people watching, because I feel like I’m holding them up if I have to do a million takes, I get really self-conscious, but that was literally the very first pass. Did one pass, listened to the playback, and I walked into the control room, and said, “I don’t think I can do it better. I could do a half-hour of takes, and I think we’re going to stick with that one.” So it was really cool—the only pass.
RR: Very early on in the solo, it sounds like you made a mistake in a transition.
BB: Yeah.
RR: I loved that you left that in. It definitely reminded me of some of Jimmy Page’s work where he left mistakes in the song because it blended with the arc of the piece.
BB: Yeah, he has a good, sloppy quality about him. You could get nitpicky about every note, but I felt really good about it. I could probably do better, but I probably won’t. (laughs)
RR: You’ve been playing with Kris Myers for quite some time in Umphrey’s, and he has a distinctive feel on drums. What has it been like to play with Cody Dickinson?
BB: Yeah, it’s a very different approach. It’s super rock steady, and it’s super straight where I don’t have to worry about where The One is. If I want to lose concentration for a minute, I can come back and know exactly where it’s going to be—like a solid train. Kris has more of a Houdini approach where he’ll disguise The One. For this project, the songs are more straightforward, and it works really well with Cody’s style.
RR: On that note, how did you and Jeff determine a set for your live gigs?
BB: We talked about, well, do we start acoustic, and then bring everybody out? Jeff was really big on doing everybody at once. We had been talking about playing together, and we’re all in the same place, so we might as well come out with the band. That made more sense. Last night [at the tour opening gig at Minneapolis’s Caboose on May 7], we came out and did an hour with everybody, and then Jeff and I did about 10 or 15 minutes, and then we brought everybody back up for another 15 minutes.
PART II – WELL, WE GOT IT WITH BRENDAN BAYLISS
Somehow I had a hunch you’d show up.
- Ernest Hemingway: Selected Letters – 1917-1961, edited by Carlos Baker
RR: 30db is playing Chicago’s Lincoln Hall just a couple of weeks after a landmark gig by your regular band. On April 24, Umphrey’s McGee played one of the most improvisational, if not the most improvisational, shows of their career. Tell me about your thoughts in the aftermath of the four set/quarters of the UMBowl. Was it really fun? Exhausting?
BB: It was really exhausting. I don’t think any of us realized how long it was going to be. We started at 8:15, and we finished at 1:15. It kind of felt like a New Year’s show. We had to do a lot of prep work. We had to do five-hour rehearsals, and a lot of it was stuff we were only going to play one time, or learning an arrangement of a specific song acoustically. It was a lot of work. I don’t know if people there realized how much work it was. When we were done with the [last] set, he didn’t realize we were going to do an encore; he was about to collapse. We were joking, “All right—we’ve got a three-song encore,” and he was saying, “No, no, no, we don’t.” He was out of gas.
RR: Were there any challenging quarters, or sets, where you felt like “WOW—I don’t know how we put that all together?”
BB: Yeah, the second one [the mashup set where fans were allowed to text requests]. There were so many texts coming that Kevin [Browning, UM sound engineer and producer] couldn’t filter them. Things were just popping up, and he was looking them up, and said, “Guys, I’m really sorry.” There was nothing we could do. There were a couple that popped up that we had to do.
RR: “Cemetery Walk This Way.”
BB: Yeah. We were just looking at each other like “What the hell?” We put ourselves out there, so we had to do it.
RR: Do you feel that you’ll do this again at some point?
BB: Yeah, but only once a year. (laughter)
RR: You’re in the middle of a brief tour right now. Are there plans for dates in the fall? Is there a long-term plan for the group, in general?
BB: We’re looking at doing another run maybe in September. I think we’re only able to do a week. We’re already looking at figuring dates that work for everybody’s calendar. We’re already talking about having new songs for the set, and new covers, and turning it into a legitimate entity.
RR: Right. What’s interesting is that One Man Show doesn’t sound like someone had their own ego and songs, and then it would be on to the next person with his own ego and songs. You guys blended and worked really well together.
BB: It is surprising how easily it fits—the flow and everything. I think it is what you just said. It seemed like a team. I think of how easy the sessions were. Some of those songs are second takes, and we had worked on them that day, like the first time we had played them with everybody in the band. I think what surprised me the most was how many songs we kept. You’re actually hearing us rehearse when we’re rolling the tape, and we’d listen back, and go, “Well, we got it.”
RR: And you are content with the direction of Umphrey’s at this point?
BB: Yeah, absolutely. We just went to Jake’s [Cinninger] house last week, and cut five new tracks—three, we’ve played live before; two, no one’s heard, so we’re starting to compile a new studio project.
